People lie, but search data tell the truth

In the ostensible privacy of online searching they inadvertently reveal themselves

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a former research assistant of mine, would not strike most people as a revolutionary. Yet in his new book Everybody Lies, he argues persuasively for a mutiny in social science.
 
The problem should be familiar to anyone who has followed political polling in the past few years, despite the successful predictions of Emmanuel Macron’s victory in France. Put simply, most people tend to lie on surveys and on social media, too. As a result, when we study people’s responses to surveys or what they say on social media, we come up with a misleading picture.
 
Rather than disparage surveys and social media posts, Stephens-Davidowitz points to a different way of understanding ourselves. In the ostensible privacy of online searching, he argues, we inadvertently reveal ourselves, and this digital truth serum offers the best way of finding out who we really are.
 
Examples abound. According to survey data, Americans overall are not particularly racist, and any racism that does exist is more dominant in the South — a view that is often endorsed by the media. Yet online searches reveal a remarkable number of racist enquiries by Americans, and these searches are in no way limited to the South. Indeed, the highest rates for racist searches are found in places such as upstate New York, eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The true racism divide is not North-South, it turns out, but East-West, with limited racist search behaviour west of the Mississippi River. This pattern correlates strongly with presidential election results; in the local areas with the highest share of racist online searches, Barack Obama substantially underperformed, and Donald Trump substantially over-performed.
 
Another example involves homosexuality. Survey data and social media profiles suggest the proportion of men who report being gay is roughly twice as high in Rhode Island as it is in Mississippi. Yet Google searches of terms associated with gay pornography vary little across the country, and are only marginally higher in Rhode Island than in Mississippi — suggesting that the survey results and social media profiles in some states may not reflect reality. Indeed, in the states where under-reporting may be larger, spouses tend to be more suspicious. The most searched-for term on Google after “Is my husband…” is not “cheating” or “depressed” but “gay”, and that question is asked far more frequently in states where the survey reports are low.
 
Many other myths are exploded in the book, some by search data and some by other evidence. The notion that violent movies cause violence? Not correct. The crime data show that violence declines before, during and after the showing of violent movies — perhaps because people who would be inclined to commit violence instead go to see the violent movie, and given the association between drinking and violence, the diversionary effect lingers because movie theatres generally don’t serve alcohol.

© Bloomberg